WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama may joke about preparing for debates by riding bumper cars, but the 2008 campaign has been fairly civil so far -- and that's not necessarily good for U.S. voters.

Conventional wisdom, and some research, has held that negative campaigning turns off voters and prompts them to stay away from the voting booth, but recent scholarship is reversing that notion, researchers say.

"Democracy itself requires negativity," said John Geer, a Vanderbilt University professor who studies negative political campaigning. "We want the right to be critical of those in power."

With the country highly polarized over issues from the Iraq war to abortion, the campaign will inevitably turn negative as the November 2008 election approaches, analysts said.

That will likely produce more attacks like the one this week in which Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani accused leading Democrat Hillary Clinton of "spewing political venom" because she questioned the war assessment of the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

Besides the obvious spin on Hillary's "attack" on General Petraeus, if negative ads are good for the country, why all he continuing attacks on the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Republican candidates that mention anything against the left, Karl Rove and so on?

I still believe we should have a debate with the top three candidates of each party. The people of this country have a right to see them state their opinions and answer questions and show how they agree or disagree. We need a different type of debate. The debates of today have no meaning at all.

Rats only can attack the ones who they blame for exposing their socialist agenda. By keeping Swift Boat and Rove etc in the forefront of critical attacks, they perpetuate their lies and discredit the messingers before the messinger can bring more truth to the table.

Just like the pre-emptive attack on Petraeus. It was clear the left would not accept anything he had to say. He is the right arm of Bush and Bush lies so Petraeus is also a liar because Bush is a failure bla bla bla.

It is always the same 10 Rats who have the Bush attack spotlight. Move on gets their air play. Same group, different day.

Democrats can call Republicans liars and killers of innocents. Democrats can highlight corruption and scandal on the part of Republicans. None of this is negative campaigning. This is just the mere "putting forth the facts" for the American people. The media helps this process along, as part of their role as the free press.

Republicans, on the other hand, should beware of questioning the patriotism of the other party. Likewise, politicizing the war would be a dreadful mistake. And, while scandals may be mentioned, we need to keep in mind that friends and family are off the table, and scandals which are more than a week old are "old news". Continuing to beat these dead horses is nothing but negative campaigning and marks one as unfit for higher office. The media helps this process along, as part of their role as the free press.

6
posted on 09/16/2007 8:41:24 AM PDT
by ClearCase_guy
(The broken wall, the burning roof and tower. And Agamemnon dead.)

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